


The Bouda

by NebulousMistress



Category: African Mythology - Fandom, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Monsters, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 04:05:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12473096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: Creation is the purview of spirits and animals. I am an engineer like my father before me.





	The Bouda

**Author's Note:**

> Halloween is coming and out come the monster fics. The bouda is out and he is laughing.

The city opens before me.

Night has fallen and the lights are down. Power saved now is power used in crisis. I understand the necessity.

I understand many things. But there are many more I do not know.

Where does this corridor lead? Why can't I go here? When will these vistas open to me? Will they be deeded to me as is right?

Where does the expedition keep its dead?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Night falls, my shift is over, I can take out my radio earpiece and shed this disguise I wear so well. I stretch my paws, flick my tail, crack my jaws, and I laugh.

And I run, laughing as I stalk the city's shadows.

I do not seek silence. I do not seek anonymity. I seek to be known. I seek to be feared. I seek to be respected. I seek to be envied. I seek the others of my kind who must be here. I am not the only engineer here, surely they aren't all limited to their human disguises.

I check their doors, letting them hear me as I scratch and laugh and sniff. But none come out to join me.

Very well then. The other scientists perhaps? They keep strange hours, sleeping during the day when the disguise cannot come off. They work at night when the power is greatest, when the need to run and laugh and shake and scratch and create are overwhelming. I understand their drive to create. But they don't seem to shed their skins. None of them are willing.

Are they even able?

I can't be alone.

Our leader the Queen Weir doesn't shed her skin either. She keeps this human disguise, or is it not a disguise? Of course it must be. Creation is the purview of spirits and animals and so I shed my skin to run and laugh and...

Oh.

Crap.

I sniff the barrel of the gun in front of me. One of the military cubs, barely old enough to hunt for his queen. He fears me.

As well he should. But I have built and created and modified weapons like this. I will wait for him to calm down and call the others. Then I will find out.

*****

I have made a mistake. They're all human. Damn it all.

“It's a spotted hyena,” Dr. Beckett says. “Although how it got here I have no idea.”

“Is everyone accounted for?” Dr. Weir asks.

“Dr. Hedgewick from engineering isn't answering his radio,” Major Sheppard says. “I can send in some guys to check on him.”

“Do it,” Dr. Weir says.

Sheppard taps his radio and gives the order.

And now I wait for them to find my disguise.

I scratch my ear, pick at my toes, wait for them to realize what they've done. They have crossed the bouda, although I am not the only engineer in this city. I cannot withhold my smithwork to punish them for their insolence. I will have to negotiate. Perhaps they will be wise.

Perhaps they will not.

Major Sheppard answers his radio and his eyes go wide. He stares at me.

“Dr. Hedgewick?” he asks. He sounds as scared as he looks.

I can't help it. I laugh.

When the marines bring me my disguise I will put it on and I will still laugh.

Creation is the purview of spirits and animals. I am both. They with their ATA genes and their alien technologies may pretend but only I can create designs out of nothing.

I am the bouda. I am the hyena. And I laugh at their clumsy attempts to rule this city. It is mine.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [tumblr](http://nebulousmistress.tumblr.com/) where you can find a hundred little fanfics I never posted here. Check it out, drop a line, maybe dare me to write something for you.


End file.
